Oracle continued to pursue its shop therapy prescription for a sluggish economy this week, buying up the intellectual property assets of Conformia Software, a provider of PLM software for life sciences companies, for an undisclosed amount.
The move follows Oracle’s March acquisition of Relsys International, a maker of drug safety and risk management applications for pharmaceutical, life sciences, and medical device companies, and its April agreement to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion.
This week’s purchase brings to Oracle products and technology that enable “life sciences companies to manage drug design, development, and transfer to production across bio, pharmaceutical, and chemical drug components,” according to Oracle’s announcement. The company plans to integrate the Conformia Product and Process Lifecycle Management (PPLM) software and technology into the Oracle Agile PLM suite and to provide integrations to Oracle Health Sciences applications and third-party systems. “This combination will enable pharmaceutical and bio-technology companies to accelerate innovation, meet regulatory objectives, and improve productivity,” Oracle said in its announcement.
Conformia, which was founded in 2000 as RIVA Commerce, has had ties to Oracle rival SAP since 2007. That year, SAP’s NetWeaver Fund made a minority investment in Conformia, and the two companies entered a technology and marketing partnership under which Conformia said it would integrate its Development Operations Management Solution with SAP’s enterprise offerings.